The Garden Wedding » Preparations

Officially moved in! 8th Jan 2008 :)

Wife — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 14:01:29 +0000

To update (as we received complaints that we were no longer updating this space – busy busy busy!), we’ve moved into our new place for about a month now (much longer than I felt it was.. haha) and it’s been just great! Other than having to deal with household chores (cleaning the house is no mean feat mind you, along with washing the clothes, cooking, cleaning the windows, etc etc), the whole idea of coming back to our own home felt really good. Of course, being able to spend so much time together felt really good too!

We’ve come a long way since the beginning of renovations, and I feel really proud of ourselves for having accomplished building a beautiful and homely home despite our busy schedules… There were many things we had to DIY or find alternatives for in order to fit our budget, and there were good deals/ sales that we made use of to obtain certain items, that we required, at a lower cost. No doubt an interesting but tiring experience, putting the whole house together felt good for the both of us.

Here’s a peek at our ‘almost complete’ home (with many items from IKEA and Bangkok! haha)

The cosy corner..
Some DIY designs…
The storeroom door, on its way to becoming…

…this!

The lamp we lugged back from Bangkok (it’s about a metre tall ok! Not easy! )

The evening view from our window (Beautiful, but we don’t often get to see it ‘cos by the time we get home, it’s dark! haha)
The dining area…

House warming anyone?

(*Note: Thanks to all who came over for CNY to liven our new home! It was great having everyone over! Thanks to all who brought gifts, really thoughtful of you guys!)

Homely home :)

Wife — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 15:49:03 +0000

Despite the troubles faced and “fires” fought while getting our new flat ready to be lived in, today was a really pleasant day, as we found our flat getting ever so much more cosy after the paint job was completed, lights were put up and drilling of essentials (and wants) onto the walls done. Just some pics to share (can compare to the earlier post where an empty house was pictured ):

The almost complete living and dining areas (lack of furniture mah)

The hallway (haven’t taken a pic of the hallway with the installed lights yet)

The MBR in a romantic color

The future Pooh room is a lovely blue

I really am loving our new home already, and am sincerely happy with the way our ‘design’ turned out!

Almost live-able now…Hee..

Our new home..the ups and downs in getting there

Wife — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 04:13:44 +0000

Took some pics of our empty (and dusty :p) new house when we went up to check on the taps and locks of our bedrooms! So here’s a peek at how our new house looks like!

Views of the currently empty living and dining areas…

The hallway to the bedrooms… I can put up photos on the walls!

And below is the view from the master bedroom window

And this one here is the view from the future Pooh room

We spoke to a contractor yesterday regarding the ‘construction’ of our kitchen cabinet. The entire one-length top and bottom cabinets came up to a whooping S$3.9k! This includes washing and polishing of our living room floor, as well as the masonry works for fitting our hobs and sinks. So I guess it’s relatively alright? It’s just that 3.9k is not a small sum, and having blown an entire life’s savings on the downpayment of the flat, we now still have to fork out money for so many things that we need (and want) in the new home. Ah well, money can always be earned back I suppose – it’s the homely feel that counts.

Oh, and we discovered that there is either a leaking or burst pipe in the bathroom wall! Water was dripping down from the tiles near the top of the wall, and a hole in the kitchen wall adjacent to the bathroom had water flowing out of it too! Imagine the horror I felt when I discovered this!
Good thing we turned on the water supply to check the taps, otherwise, when we want to start any form of renovation, it will be disastrous. We’d be complaining to the HDB in due course (couldn’t do it on a weekend could we?), and hopefully it’s nothing serious! *cross fingers*

For now, my mind is in a whirl just thinking about the painting process (it’s simply too expensive to get someone to paint for us, so we have to DIY), colors for the walls, the appropriate kitchen sink, hob and hood, as well as furniture. Oh man.. getting our home sweet home is indeed a lot tougher than I thought it’d be. Haha.. Looks like I overestimated myself and my abilities

*Amendment: My mother-in-law kindly sponsored us for the paint job as she feels that we will simply strain ourselves doing it DIY. And I’m glad she persuaded us to take up her offer, cos after seeing the painter do the job, it’s simply no mean feat!

A headache..

Wife — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 13:13:22 +0000

Looks like getting our own love nest is not as easy as I thought… No doubt that we are grateful that our house came relatively smoothly in terms of the whole balloting and buying process, but getting it ready for moving in is another matter altogether! With a tight budget, it is so difficult to get everything done easily, as many items are just so expensive! From lightings to furniture and painting, everything requires both time and money to acquire and pick. Phew, what a headache it has proven to be!

And hubby and I have differing opinions when it comes to design, so, we are working around it, but are starting to feel some strain already. We are nonetheless looking forward to moving in! We just got our house keys today and went to view our house for the very first time! It was super dusty (having been vacant for quite a long while), but quite airy and bright! So we are overall pretty happy about it. Some parts of the flat are smaller than I had imagined it to be though. At least we are one step closer to having our own place now, so we shall continue to jiayou towards this current goal of ours!

Flat choosing

Wife — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 14:43:53 +0000

We finally received the letter of notification to go down to HDB hub to choose our flat. We were given a date and time, which if we were to change, we’d have to suffer the consequences of being pushed back in the queue of flat choosing, i.e. risk getting the flat of your choice being snapped up by somebody else. Fortunately, I do not have major experiments on the given date, so I can afford to go down at the given time slot (which is pretty early in the morning).

It isn’t easy at all, choosing a flat. We don’t even get to see the actual house, just the layout maps! At least we went down personally to look at views from the corridors (which should translate to the views from some of the windows in the flat), and the direction of the afternoon sun. Quite interesting, but not exactly the most fulfilling. Feeling down lately (I’ve been having many of these mood doses over the past month – major part due to lab), and I find it difficult to feel too excited about the new flat. BUT I do so want to get it soon. Would love to have a nest to call our own.

For now, it’s *cross fingers* that we get our first choice of flats, and that it’d be a good one.

We are successful for our flat balloting!

Wife — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 12:01:27 +0000

Yup, the title of this entry says it all – we are getting our new flat in Jurong West extension! Yipee! A 5-room flat, we are now having a headache of which unit to choose, since we are not allowed to go into the units to take a look for ourselves. Nonetheless, it’s getting exciting! With all the thinking about how we want to do up our new home, how I can design a Pooh corner (my dream!) and where to get our furniture from. Hee.. But excitement aside, there’s also the reality to face – money money money! Not only do we have to fork out money to pay the downpayment (which varies from 20-28k depending on which unit we get), we now have to budget for our renovation/ furniture shopping too. Not to mention we will have to pay for our numerous bills once we get our key. Man, living on our own is no mean feat! Growing up means greater responsibilities…

Wedding gowns galore!

Wife — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 16:26:55 +0000

Went bridal studio shopping with my cousin on Saturday, and it was such an eye-opener! The variety of cuts, shapes and designs of the wedding gowns available on the racks of the bridal studios are simply stunning and makes one feel really spoilt for choice, as they all look so beautiful!

And to my surprise, the service of the 2 bridal studios we visited were friendly and not at all pushy. One had such young staff that I felt they could truly understand and relate to what the young bride-to-be needs!

It was really so much fun, and I hope I can be included in more of the excitement of her plans.. Hee..

Just some learning points obtained from the visits:
1) The gowns look entirely different when viewed on the racks compared to when they are taken down and out of their bags, or when worn on the bride-to-be’s body
2) Pre-conceived notions of particular designs of gowns that would look bad on the bride-to-be should be thrown out of the window until that particular design has been tried on personally
3) Be frank with the staff of the bridal studio as to what you need and want, so that you can obtain as much useful information as possible
4) Package prices are considered commercial secrets, so no bridal studio would pass you a quote of their packages with details. Remember as much of the details as possible, you can always write them down after you leave the studio!
5) Freebies thrown into the packages may seem attractive, but do consider what you truly need and whether the bridal studio can satisfy your requirements. An important factor might be the attitude of the staff. Imagine that you have to deal with these people amidst your busy wedding plans. You surely wouldn’t want to have to expend more energy than neccessary on arguing with them or losing the cheer of the whole process by getting annoyed by their negative attitudes, right?

When would it be my turn?

The planning process…

Wife — Sat, 18 Aug 2007 08:45:35 +0000

Now that the wedding solemnisation event is over, I can showcase our planning process! Have stopped myself from doing so earlier so as not to spoil any surprises.. Haha At least in terms of what we have designed and customized ourselves so as to bring a more personal touch to the whole event for our guests, here is what we had in store for everyone:

The whole process of choosing the right materials, design, fonts and wording for the invitation card & envelopes (clockwise from top left: a first draft of the wording and choice of font; font for our envelopes; multiple print-outs to see the effects of different designs; invitation design 1; invitation design 2; our final decision on the outlook of the invitation)

(clockwise from top left: our photo standing on an easel for the reception table; the envelope designs for our invitations; corsages for my cousins helping out; party poppers for the march-in/ end of ROM ceremony)

A close-up shot of the bride & groom accessory attached to the photo frame (left), and the decorated sign for the Photo Booth along with a pair of wedding bears!

And lastly, a personal favourite as part of the whole wedding reception – the photo guest book (after months of preparation in decorating and designing it!)! Here’s a glimpse of what it looks like:

Before the photo gets slotted in…

…and after!

There! Our efforts after the few (about three?) months of preparation, though tough, came out beautifully! I’m unable to showcase everything here, but the above are snapshots of the planning process… I can’t stop wondering now about how to make our customary wedding/ banquet more unique… Looks like this is what we call “once you start, you cannot stop” (thinking about it that is)! Haha…

Wonder when will I get back to reality?

Hope we get our new flat :)

Wife — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 16:13:44 +0000

Even though I’ve lots to do, I just feel like blogging. After viewing a sample flat unit of the Jurong West flats available for eballoting this month onwards, I’m actually quite excited about getting a totally new flat there. The flat comes with basic furnishings, such as painted walls, skirtings, floorings and toilet utilities. In fact, we both quite like the flat! I must say that the blocks are pretty packed, and are therefore very close to one another, but the flat itself is very much appealing. The price ranges from 215-255k, which we believe is the range for lower floor (215k) to upper floor (255k) flats.

Take a look for yourself…

The living room, with windows from the ceiling to the floor!

The bedroom, with wooden flooring, i like! It’s the same for the other 2 bedrooms

The shower room…

Sink in the master bedroom’s toilet

Really think the place is quite nice, even though the kitchen is small… But well, it depends on whether we can get balloted now.. By the way, this is a 5-room flat

1st Fitting for our dress and suit!

Wife — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 16:25:42 +0000

Aaron and I went for our first fitting at the bridal studio for my dress and his suit! I was quite excited about the thought of getting to try out the dress that I’ve loved so much when I initially saw it in the magazine, and also for Aaron to see if his shirt and shoes went along with his suit. Considering it’s a made-to-measure dress, I was quite sorely disappointed with the dress, though I must say that at first, I was truly overwhelmed by the beauty of the design of the dress (really beautiful!). It came out more loose than I’d have preferred it to be, it just wasn’t very fitting. Especially at the bust area of the dress, my tube dress just did not fit very well and constantly slipped downwards. Hopefully, after alterations, it’d be much better. Otherwise, I’d be at my wits’ end since there would not be enough time for a second alteration.

Aaron’s suit looks great, and after some slight amendments to the length of the pants, think it’s ready for the actual day! And both his shoes as well as mine match our outfits, so we’re more or less ready, at least in terms of the outfits, for the ROM ceremony.

Overall I do love the dress very much, but am just disappointed with it not being fitting enough. Hee.. Here are some pics that we took today.. Compared to what I had posted earlier from the magazine, do you think the effect turned out well? I surely think the skirt part of the dress came out fantastically well!